


you got a lonesome road to walk

by straddling_the_atmosphere



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Wings, Angels, Angels are Weird (Supernatural), Fix-It, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, Religion, finale fix-it, post 15x18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-11-19
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:08:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27635218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/straddling_the_atmosphere/pseuds/straddling_the_atmosphere
Summary: Angels cannot be Saints. Castiel has always known this, like he knows everything, like he knows that the sky only looks blue from his position on the earth, that the sun can’t blind him if he looks directly at it, that if he listens closely, he can hear the chattering of the mycelium systems underneath the dirt, connecting all life into one breathing thing.-Dean chases Castiel into the Empty.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 9
Kudos: 118





	you got a lonesome road to walk

**Author's Note:**

> this was just supposed to be some weird shit about angels but i wrote some orpheus and eurydice bullshit instead. ugh. have NOT seen any supernatural after s8 but have seen some clips.

Angels cannot be saints. Castiel has always known this, like he knows everything, like he knows that the sky only looks blue from his position on the earth, that the sun can’t blind him if he looks directly at it, that if he listens closely, he can hear the chattering of the mycelium systems underneath the dirt, connecting all life into one breathing thing.

He knows Dean and Sam don’t understand this—how hard it is to block out everything else. He remembers Dean accusing him of not being able to feel, and maybe it is true of other angels, but his issue has always been that he’s felt—too much. The beating heart of fungi underneath his feet, the leaves rustling, the smell of natural decay. The sound of birds, miles away but so sharp in his senses that they might as well be chirping right in his ear.

It’s easier in the bunker. Things are quieter. He runs his fingers over the worn pages of a map, over the soft leather of a journal and if he closes his eyes he can feel the warm, beating heart of the steer that eventually became it, the rest of its body used for meat.

There is a rosary on the table. Carelessly tossed. It’s well worn, wooden, the Virgin’s face smoothed over from constant use. It doesn’t matter whose it is, and Castiel picks it up, feeling the warmth.

The thing is—the thing is, Saints are chosen long after they’re gone. Angels don’t run on time, though. It’s such a human thing, an earthly thing, to force yourself to plan a day to the hour, as if hours exist. As if it isn’t just words, just the slow spinning around the sun. Angels can’t predict the future or any of that, but in their true forms, they don’t precisely run on linear time, either. Castiel has vague memories of a time without the Winchesters, the After. That’s how he’ll see it, anyway. For Castiel it will be—the Before Winchesters, the Winchesters, and the After Winchester. Even when he was human, when the body his form inhabited was his only one, time never felt quite real to him.

In the Empty, things are quiet. Time isn’t real here either. It just is, in a way. Nobody bothers him, and for that he is surprised. No gloating, no grin. Just quiet. Just darkness. Castiel lets out a sigh, even though he doesn’t need to. He’s gotten used it now, though. Breathing. He’s gotten used to pressing a hand to his chest and feeling a heart beat in there, pumping blood into the body that was not his but now is. 

The worst thing about the Empty is he can’t _feel_ anything. The things he’d gotten used to--how loud Earth is, the fungal systems under his feet, the sound of flowers and roots pushing through the dirt, the buzzing of bees, static and low, always in the back of his mind. The musky scent of sweat and man that lingered in the bunker, no matter how often it was cleaned. 

He rolls his shoulders, feeling the heavy weight of tattered wings on his back. The way they aren’t physical but sometimes still feel as if they are, dragging along the ground. 

He starts to walk. There is nowhere to go, and he’s resigned himself to this, but there’s something in his chest anyway, something that’s been there since he let the Empty take him. _Dean Winchester is saved._ He smiles to himself, rueful. The one thing he was good at doing, and it is the last thing he’d ever done. He doesn’t regret it.

He’s...happy. Kind of. Not the incandescent happiness that allowed the Empty to take him. But a softer kind. The kind that lingers after a weight has been taken off your shoulders. A secret, carried for so long it had just become a part of him, was now gone. He hopes Dean knows what he did. That when he reached into Hell to pull a broken man together again, he was fundamentally changed. He was lost. _As soon as he touched you, Castiel was lost._

Castiel tips his head back, to the nonexistent sun, pretending he can still feel it warm on his face, and he smiles.

* * *

“You have one chance, Dean,” Jack says, eyes intent. “Angels are _supposed_ to be down there and not even I can stop that, not like I could with Eileen.”

“Yeah, I got it,” he says roughly. “Go in, find Cas, lead him out.”

“Don’t look at him,” Jack says. “If you look at him even once, he has to stay. Forever.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to find him then?” Dean snarls and then closes his eyes, letting out a slow breath.

“You’ll know.” Jack touches his shoulder, over the bloodstained handprint on his jacket. “You’ll know.” And everything is dark.

The thing is--the thing is that Cas isn’t supposed to stay dead. He’s supposed to come back because he always comes back. It’s not supposed to be _final._ Cas is supposed to outlive them all except Jack, he’s an angel for fuck’s sake. 

And if he is gonna stay dead, well, Dean can’t stand not having the last word.

With his sight gone, Dean has to rely on other things. Smell, touch, even taste. But there’s none of that here. He’s truly alone, deeply so, in a way that he’s never experienced. Even when he was dead, he was in Hell, which was loud, or Purgatory, also loud. There were _things_ around. Things to do and hear. But here, where Cas is, or at least where Jack says Cas is, there’s nothing. 

“Cas!” Dean yells. “ _Cas,_ you sonuvabitch.”

Nothing. He walks, weirded out by the fact that his steps don’t make any noise. He yells Cas’s name until his voice is hoarse, and he walks for what seems like ages. 

“You really think he’s down here?” Chuck asks and Dean flinches, shifting, still sightless. 

“You--we depowered you. You’re not here.”

“Mm,” Chuck hums. “Guess I’m just something in your head. Does that make it worse or better?”

Dean clenches his hands into fists and Chuck laughs. 

“It’s funny,” he says. “All my stories, all my outcomes, didn’t see this one. You already had your Orpheus moment, Dean, and remember what happened then? You left your little angel that could to rot.”

“I _didn’t,”_ he snarls, stepping forward but there’s nothing to swing at, nothing to shoot. There’s nothing there.

“And then, when he did get rescued, they really went through that head of his, didn’t they? Didn’t really work, of course. It wouldn’t. Not with this version of him. He’s really in love with you. But, he already told you that, didn’t he? Finally.”

Dean bares his teeth and Chuck snorts. 

“Well,” he says, sounding amused in a way that makes Dean want to punch him. “Good luck. I guess.”

Dean doesn’t know how he can tell but he can tell that Chuck, or whatever it was that sounded like Chuck, is gone.

“ _Cas,”_ Dean yells again and there’s--there’s something, something that feels like static, that feels like cracking glass and bleeding ears in an abandoned gas station. He sucks in a breath.

“...Cas?” He reaches out, hand outstretched, and it brushes something _electric,_ that arcs up his body and makes him hiss. “Fuck, is that...” He grasps and grits his teeth because it’s painful, like the shock that left his heart damaged years ago, when a Reaper traded his life for another’s. It burns through his body, etched to his ribs, centered on his shoulder, sharp and throbbing. “Yeah, that’s you,” he says, laughing, breathless. “These your--your fucking wings?”

Static noise rises again, bright and earsplitting and-- “Hey, remember how I can’t hear you like this? Christ, I’m gonna bleed out the ears again. Just. Just. Follow me, Cas. Okay? Follow me. We’re going home.”

The noise fades but the electricity is there still, the shifting of something alien, the wings, Dean thinks, hysterical, brushing against his back and stinging like a brand. He can’t see Cas, understands now why Jack blinded him, because if he saw him like this, he’d be blind anyway, but it’s the hardest thing to let go of that wing, to step back, to hope, just _hope_ that Cas is following him. 

Is this what they’d call faith? That elusive thing. There’s an angel behind him, sharp, terrifying, all static and electricity and livewire and alien. Something _cosmic,_ that has chosen to follow Dean. That has always chosen to follow him.

He walks, the hair on the back of his neck standing on end. He wants to turn around, to reach out and see if he can touch it again, the frayed end of a wing. Just to know he’s there. 

_Why would he follow you, Dean?_ Chuck’s voice lingers. 

_Yes._

A whine starts in the back of his head, then through it, buzzing until his teeth begin to ache. Something presses, hard, like it’s trying to burrow into his skull, and he gasps, eyes flying open and he turns around and he can see--white, bright, the sharp bursts of static, _feathers,_ shifting blue like the hottest flames, like an electric shock, like--

_\--your eyes. Close your eyes!_

And he slams his eyes shut as white overtakes between closed eyelids and heat floods through his body like he’s touched a fucking socket.

And then, quiet. Muffled.

Slowly, things come back. A bird call. Crunching leaves. His jaw hurts, clenched tightly, and he can feel a migraine building in his skull. His entire body aches, like he’s run ten miles flat. 

He can taste something in the back of his mouth. Sharp, like feel of the air before a thunderstorm. His tongue curls along his teeth, chasing it, wondering.

“Grace,” a voice says, gravelly, intimately familiar, and his eyes fly wide open. “My Grace.”

He opens his mouth soundlessly and Castiel presses a hand to his chest, over his ribs, a possessive gesture, and something inside him lights up, the Grace itself seeking out its own self. He closes his mouth with a click.

“When you’re gone,” Castiel murmurs, hand on his chest, fingers spread wide. “Your bones will be scattered across America. The churches will fight for them. Grace-touched bones. Saint Winchester, the one who saved the world. The Righteous Man.” He looks at Dean, bright, earnest. “You’re a holy relic now.”

Dean’s face feels hot. “That’s...kinda weird, man.”

Castiel finally shifts back, dropping his hand. “It’s just true,” he says simply. “Angels can’t be saints. But we watch them. We can tell the ones who are touched to be so. Who have the chance.” He glances at Dean again, electric blue under dark lashes. 

“It is good,” he says, with a soft sigh, tilting his head up to the sun. “I never thought I’d feel this again.”

“Not letting you get away that easy,” Dean says, and he reaches out, finally unfreezing himself, and he grips Cas’s hand, purposeful, determined, watching as his smile widens.

Castiel reaches out, skimming Dean’s face and cupping a hand on his jaw. “On the seventh day, He rested. He saw his creation. And He saw that it was good.”

And it was.

**Author's Note:**

> well good luck everyone. godspeed.
> 
> edit: 11/20/2020 - lol @ that finale huh. i'm considering this a finale fix it now.


End file.
